THOMAS LARSON

Thomas Larson is the author of The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading and Writing Personal Narrative, Swallow Press / Ohio University Press, 2007. His book, now in its third printing, is the first of its kind to evaluate the dramatic rise of the memoir in the last twenty years and to explore the craft and purpose of contemporary memoir writing. The Memoir and the Memoirist has been praised in the San Diego Union-Tribune, ForeWord Magazine, The Writer, Ploughshares, and The Bloomsbury Review.

In September 2010, Pegasus Books will publish Larson's The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings." Saddest Music is an exploration of Barber's Adagio, the Pieta of music, and its enigmatic composer—in celebration of the centenary of his birth. The Missouri Review will publish in its fall 2010 issue the first and second chapters of The Saddest Music Ever Written.

New work in 2010 includes an essay-review of David Shields' Reality Hunger for Agni Online, a profile of crime writer Caitlin Rother in San Diego Magazine, a review of S. L. Wisenberg's The Adventures of Cancer Bitch for Contrary, a review of Elif Batuman's The Possessed for The Rumpus, and two feature stories for the Reader: the murder-suicide of Frank and Ginger Bass and wild boars in San Diego's backcountry.

For twelve years, Larson has been a contributing writer for the weekly San Diego Reader where he specializes in investigative journalism, narrative nonfiction, and profiles. For the Reader Larson has written more than forty cover stories.

Among them are several true-crime murder stories and a feature on a Salvadoran immigrant who died from neglect at a San Diego federal detention center; a profile of conservative political writer, Dinesh D’Souza; the end-of-life tale of Mark Twain’s daughter, Clara Clemens; the story of Marilyn Monroe and Some Like It Hot, filmed at the Hotel Del Coronado; an article on pit bulls, sympathetic to their point-of-view; an exposé of a Mexican girl sold into sexual slavery in San Diego county; a profile of socialist author Mike Davis; articles on the molecular origin of life, the personal motivation industry, and San Diego’s 2007 subprime mortgage meltdown; and a profile of the renowned psychologist Ken Druck, whose Jenna Druck Foundation offers support for parents who have lost their children.

Larson is a regular book reviewer for Contrary Magazine online and writes reviews for other magazines and journals as well.

Summer 2009, New English Review published his essay, “Fiction, Fact, and Faked Memoirs,” which tells the story of four recently faked memoirs and the ensuing struggle to clarify the moral identity of memoir writing.

In 2008, Larson’s memoir-essay, “Mrs. Wright’s Bookshop,” tied for the Readers Award for the Essay, 2007 - 2008.

The author’s memoir writing includes “Freshman Comp, 1967,” from the Anchor Essay Annual: The Best of 1997, edited by Phillip Lopate, Doubleday. Other personal pieces have appeared in Potomac Review, Chicago Reader, Cimarron Review, Hawaii Review, San Diego Reader, and The Cream City Review, where he won the Editor’s Award for Nonfiction.

Critical essays on memoir and autobiography have appeared in Boulevard, The San Diego Union-Tribune, AWP Chronicle, El Paso Review, and other periodicals. “Skull and Roses—Reflections on Enshrining Georgia O’Keeffe” came out in Southwest Review, and a critical re-reading of the recently published, unexpurgated “definitive edition” of Anne Frank’s diary appeared in Antioch Review. In 2002, The Gettysburg Review published the essay, “Almost Beautiful: A Life of Nathanael West.” Amazon.com / Shorts published his “Is the Unexamined Life Worth Voting For: The Memoirs of Clinton, Edwards, and Obama” as well as other essays and stories.

Larson teaches classes, leads workshops, and lectures on memoir and the music of Samuel Barber throughout the United States. He is the father of two sons, Jeremy and Blake. He and his partner, Suzanna Neal, live in San Diego and, every spring, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.